Written in the Stars || Sean and Kaycee

Prologue

He had always been on the run. His whole life, they had been coming after him, relentless in their pursuit. There wasn't a minute in his life when the Regime hadn't been on his heels. He would hear their footsteps clambering after him and feel their flashlights pointing at the back of his head before he had even turned around. At night, the sheets on his prison cot would get twisted and tangled from his legs pedaling away from that mysterious force of evil.

Some nights, he would wake up in a cold sweat, certain that someone was watching him. He would peer out the window and see only the night guard on duty, pacing up and down the prison courtyard. The stars and the constellations above would haunt him, spelling out a foreboding warning, one that he couldn't decode. As a result, he would lie awake, jumping at every shadow that crept along the wall of his cell.

Other nights, he would be forced to relive his worst memories. He would hear the piercing scream of a woman as she was dragged by her hair into a dark cellar. He would feel the cold, sticky puddle of blood underneath his feet, and it would make him want to throw up just like he had that one, terrible night. He would hear the high, cold laughter of the man wearing black. And finally, he would see the wide, tearful brown eyes that he could never place. He would wake up from these disjointed memories gasping for breath, and the tears would run down his face, making strange clean streaks through the dirt and filth.

He was always running from something. From the Regime, from the past, but mostly from himself. And while he could outrun the Regime and blot out the past, he could not escape his own faults and his own insecurities. It was like trying to outrun a shadow. He could not escape who he had become.

She had always been trapped. Her legs had grown stiff from inactivity as she spent yet another day locked up in her own mind. Walking felt like wading through thick molasses. Speaking caused millions of tiny pins to prick the inside of her throat. All of her bodily functions were rusty from ill-use. And it was her own fault. She knew too well that she was simply a pawn in someone else's game. There had once been a time when she had been willing to fight it. But now, she just let herself be moved along the chessboard, fighting battles that were not her own.

All the while, the power that lay within her festered into something that she could no longer control. Her own vision would drive her mad, not least because she could never turn it off. Power was a fragile glass orb, she had come to realize. If you didn't shatter it, it would soon come to shatter you. She could hone her powers into a sharp tool if she wanted to. But to do so would be to fall straight into the hands of the Regime.

And so, every day, she swallows her pride. She looks down at the floor as much as she possibly can. She ignores the sky and the stars above--they filled her with too much longing. She ignores the signs that lie around her and within her. She beats back the urges swimming inside of her. She resists clawing at the shackles around her hands and feet. She traps herself into a box, hiding from who she had become.

This is a simple story of two souls fighting against destiny. Souls are like meteors, you see. Sometimes two souls are on an unavoidable crash course. The gravitational pull brings them closer and closer together every second. You may try to run. You may try to hide. But collision is inevitable. It is written in the stars.

Just you wait.